An embodiment of the present invention relates to the field of integrated circuits and, more particularly, to an approach for integrated circuit self-description.
When debugging or otherwise analyzing an integrated circuit, it is typically desirable to have access to detailed documentation and/or information regarding the integrated circuit's design and operation in order to create targeted tests, for example. Such documentation and other information is conventionally provided in written form or stored on a mass storage device such as a network-accessible disk drive.
An issue may arise, however, if the appropriate documentation or information is not easily locatable. For example, if there are multiple iterations of a particular product, it may not be straightforward to determine which of a variety of documents applies to the product to be analyzed. Other issues may arise in terms of accessing documentation for products that have been in production for a period of time and associated documentation and information is not archived properly.